I’d been tossing the idea for this post in my head for a little while, but I wanted to actually play through all of Resident Evil 6 before doing so. I don’t base my opinions on simply just appearance, although it does probably play a good part of it; but I also like to learn a little bit about the characters themselves, and see what kind of characters they are, and whether or not their personas, attitudes and actions are annoying or not.
That being said, I do fancy myself as a very well versed fan of the Resident Evil series in general. I’ve played just about every single one of the canon games, so I’d like to think I know what I’m talking about, but ultimately in the end, it’s still a personal opinion list, and of course, it’s objectifying women, but I don’t deny that I’ve been known to make some tasteless chauvinistic remarks before, so it’s not like it should be a surprise to anyone.
Anyway, without further ado, from worst to best, I rank the womens of Resident Evil. Also word of caution, I may give up some spoilers here and there if you, or I, am not careful with how I write this.
9. Excella Gionne (RE5)
Excella makes the list, because technically she is a playable character. Albeit it’s just in the Mercenaries mode of RE5, that’s good enough to qualify for the list here. Story-wise, she’s what I like to call a “Denise Richards.” Because like Denise Richards in The Saint, she’s a beautiful woman that also just so happens to have been blessed with genius-level intelligence on top of the described model-like beauty, and just so happens to be some sort of world-renown scientist.
Excella also happens to be Albert Wesker’s plaything, and despite the fact that he’s more or less indifferent to her horny affections, it’s alluded to a few times that they’ve banged. But much like anyone else who gets involved with Albert Wesker, they get screwed.
And since I want to try and be nice to fictional, computer-generated characters, I’ll name everyone’s best attribute, in comparison to the others. Excella has the best boobs of all the Resident Evil women. It’s hard to argue, because as conservative as some of the other women in the series sometimes are with their outfits, Excella is the exact opposite, and her knockers are on display in full prominence almost all the time she’s ever on screen.
8. Ashley Graham (RE4)
Like Excella, Ashley makes the list because technically she is also playable in RE4, albeit for only a short time. She is basically used to gofer a key, some ammo and some gold items for Leon in a small portion of RE4, and when it comes to offensive maneuvers, she can only set some Ganados on fire with oil lamps, and due to an odd glitch in the game, if timed correctly after opening a door in a monk’s face, she can suplex them.
Ashley is the president’s daughter, and it’s Leon’s duty to rescue her from the evil Los Illuminados cult located in rural Spain. Otherwise, Ashley is kind of an obnoxious character, since she’s the typical damsel in distress character, and is given just a little too much dialogue throughout the game. She clams up when she’s in trouble, and can easily be abducted if you get caught up in the throes of battle sometimes.
Ashley narrowly beats Excella by virtue of the fact that I’m not that big into unbelievable Denise Richards characters, and Ashley, despite being the president’s daughter is more like the girl next door type that appeals to me. Due to pervy Japanese design, she’s often flashing her panties at you, and naturally she has a substantial rack. She supposedly gets raped late in the game, but apparently shrugs it off as it’s never mentioned after you rescue her, and she propositions Leon in the end of the game, like a girl who wants some post-traumatic sex.
Ashley has the best fan-made game patch available for those who play on PCs. Ashley is more or less a dead ringer for a character in another Capcom game that was released at almost the same time as RE4, in Fiona Belli, the protagonist of Haunting Ground. By applying this patch to RE4, you seamlessly turn Ashley Graham into Fiona Belli, and as far as I’m concerned, it’s a much more aesthetically amusing experience.
7. Rebecca Chambers (RE0, RE1, RE5)
In terms of the Resident Evil canon story, it really all started with Rebecca Chambers. Her storyline in Resident Evil Zero predates the events of even the first Raccoon City mansion events of RE1, where she gets tangled into that mess as well.
By virtue of never appearing in the series after the events of RE1, aside from her non-canon cameo selection in RE5’s Mercenaries Mode, Rebecca Chambers is the youngest girl of all listed women at the age of 18. She would obviously be older than Sherry Birkin if Capcom actually did anything with her, but since they didn’t, forever 18 she remains.
Rebecca is the youngest member of the S.T.A.R.S. unit that was pretty much decimated in the events of the Raccoon City Incident. As far as the story goes, she was yet another young child prodigy that breezed through her contemporary education, and became a field medic for the Raccoon City police department’s S.T.A.R.S. Bravo Team. She’s included in the initial mission to the mountains where she is one of the few survivors, only to go into hiding at the Spencer Mansion until Chris, Jill, Wesker and the S.T.A.R.S. Alpha Team arrives, and she ultimately escapes with them.
Rebecca ranks low on the list, because well, she’s 18. She’s given little sex appeal throughout the series, and even her alternate outfits range more campy and cutesy than any attempts at trying to objectify her like just about every other female. It doesn’t mean I don’t like Rebecca, it just means I liked everyone else more.
But for what it’s worth, Rebecca Chambers was the de facto best character to play in RE5’s Mercenaries Mode. Rebecca started off with a high-capacity shotgun, as well as an assault rifle, and in a mode where healing items were at a premium, being the field medic, Rebecca starts off with two first-aid sprays. Whereas I struggled to get good scores with just about every character other than Wesker, once I got Rebecca, I was getting at least A rankings on every single stage.
6. Sheva Alomar (RE5)
Admittedly, I thought the creation of the Sheva character in general was an attempt by Capcom to dissuade the popular accusations that Capcom didn’t make any African-descent characters with any substance. Prior to Sheva, all blacks portrayed in Capcom, as well as most other video games were bad guys, comic relief, stereotyped, or all of the above. But after playing RE5, I had a pretty decent opinion of Sheva in general, and it was a pretty solid and fun game outright.
Sheva’s story is that she was a child when she saw her tribe get decimated by an evil corporation. This led to her eventually growing up (yeah, that quick) to be a highly-trained operative for the B.S.A.A., the group that was formed by Chris and Jill, and backed by the UN and the government to fight bio-terrorism AKA mutant monsters created from viruses. Eventually, she becomes Chris Redfield’s partner when he comes to Africa to fight off reports of bio-terrorism going on in the region, and ultimately, she ends up helping saving the world from Albert Wesker’s maniacal plot to infect the whole world with his tentacle-monster virus.
After the events of RE5, I kind of knew that Sheva probably wasn’t going to be seen again. Even if the game were wide open to continue for several more sequels, Sheva’s general involvement in the game pretty much said that her story was pretty much going to be exclusive to only plots happening in Africa, and the game didn’t really put a whole lot of effort into giving her character that much depth or substance. They don’t even hint at even the most remote possibility of her being a romantic interest for Chris Redfield, and the fans would have to stop themselves as soon as Jill Valentine is re-introduced into the series. Not to mention, it’s debatable that Chris is even interested in women at all based on his character’s obsessive depiction in RE6, but even that would have given Sheva some substance.
Appearance-wise, Sheva’s good looking, and as all video game females, is objectified with a generous bust as well as a fine, computer-generated tush. She has some pretty outrageous alternative outfits, especially the red-riding hood, and the tribal Sheva. But if there’s one thing I liked about her the most, it would have to be the accent.
5. Helena Harper (RE6)
It would have been easier to have placed Helena higher on the list by virtue of nothing other than the freshness of her being one of the main characters in RE6, but upon thinking about where she ranks amongst all the gals of Resident Evil, she falls in at #5.
A government agent for the secret service, Helena’s story is that she is basically blackmailed into cooperating in a plot that succeeds in the infection of the President with the C-Virus that turns him into a zombie. She then teams with Leon Kennedy to unearth the corruption of an NSA scientist gone mad, and eventually the yet again, saving of the world from destruction by monster-creating viruses.
Throughout the game, I’d have to say that I was kind of tepid on Helena. Her character was very emotionally driven, and definitely made some Ashley-like stupid decisions based on emotions alone, making me wonder if Leon was like a magnet to kind of crazy women. Her initial plot was really obnoxious, because she was being all obtuse and secretive despite the fact that the world was turning to shit around her, and gullible Leon was just going along with it all. Additionally, I didn’t really care for Helena’s kind of dated and unusual looking hair style, and wondered what the character designers were thinking when they designed her.
But out of the male characters, Leon’s definitely the man, and my favorite amongst the dudes. Mostly due to the fact that he’s so fucking suave and gets all the womens. That being said, there was intrigue on my part on whether or not Helena wanted to bang Leon like every other woman in the series that meets Leon wants to do. There are moments in the game that leave it open to interpretation that there’s romantic involvement between Helena and Leon, which definitely helps give her some lasting depth. Probably not enough to have her ever appear in canon in another Resident Evil game, but it’s debatable on whether or not the story can support another one at all regardless.
Most importantly though, Helena has the best ass of all the Resident Evil women. I also like the fact that the RE6 essentially designed the game to have specific points in the game where characters changed clothes, because they knew people liked alternate outfits and create opportunities for cosplayers. But back to Helena, she definitely had the best ass of all the women in the series. I mean with the third-person view of the game, it’s impossible to not notice its shape of those finely positioned polygons and pixels, and there’s something about the business-casual pants, yet tough as a Secret Service agent should be look that Helena rocks that I dig. I didn’t really care nearly as much for the outfit change in China, but as far as default outfits go, Helena’s first-half default outfit definitely appeals to me.
4. Claire Redfield (RE2, RE:Code Veronica)
The biggest injustice in the Resident Evil series is the fact that Claire Redfield hasn’t appeared at least a third time in the series. I do not count her inclusion into the 3DS Mercenaries Mini-Game, or RE: Darkside Chronicles, because neither of those are canonical in any way shape or form. To some degree, you can give her a little credit for one of the two Resident Evil OAV movies, but it’s still not a game where I can control, and play as Claire, and blow shit up as Claire that counts to me.
But anyway, her story doesn’t need much explanation: she’s Chris Redfield’s little sister, and has starred in two games in the series. She stopped the G-Virus epidemic in RE2, and contributed to the destruction of the Ashford family’s maniacal plot to try to infect the world with the T-Veronica Virus in RE: Code Veronica.
Easily, Claire is the most emotional character in the series, and is probably the most pure of heart characters in the entire series. She’s nice and caring to everyone, she becomes Sherry Birkin’s surrogate mother figure in the events of RE2, and displays more emotion than any other character throughout the series. The fact that she is a fairly competent fighter in her own right is an interesting dynamic to what’s easily the nicest woman amongst them all.
Looks-wise, I’d honestly have to say that Claire is pretty middle-of-the-pack. She’s more cute than she is sexy, and her design doesn’t really objectify her as having a notable rack or a fantastic tush. I like her outfits in general throughout the series (except the pink shorts in RE2, ugh), but I don’t think there was ever any effort to really go the sexy route with Claire.
But what I really love about Claire is her voice. She’s voiced by Alyson Court, a voice actress that hits all sorts of worlds of nostalgia, most notably the fact that she was the voice of Lydia from the Beetlejuice cartoon, as well as the voice of Jubilee from the X-Men cartoon.
And it works so perfectly on a character like Claire.
3. Sherry Birkin (RE2, RE6)
When I originally found out that a grown-up Sherry Birkin was going to get a role in RE6, instead of someone like Claire Redfield, I remember I was like WTF? Seriously, Sherry Birkin gets her role resurrected, while Claire gets ignored again? The checklist of character use was beginning to get very unfavorable towards Claire, and I had once said that the only way a RE6 game can really happen is if Claire is involved, because Chris, Jill and Leon have been used more often. I will be the first to admit that I was skeptical, erring towards not looking forward to seeing Sherry Birkin in RE6.
I’ll also be the first to admit that I was pretty wrong about the execution of grown-up Sherry Birkin’s character. I honestly thought the Jake/Sherry arc of RE6 was going to be the worst one of them all, and I haven’t really decided if it is the worst of the four, but I do think it was fun, and way better than I had expected it to be.
When Sherry was introduced in RE2, she was 12 years old. She was not cute, she was not sexy, she was just a little god damn kid whom Claire’s plot revolved around, and she happened to be carrying the last sample of the G-Virus, hidden in her locket. At some point, she was infected with the virus, but being the daughter to the people who created it, there was some convoluted vaccine or something along those lines which prevented her from becoming a monster. She was playable in RE2, as the little person who could crawl into a small area, and shove some crates around and flip some switches.
Re-introduced in RE6, she is 26 years old, and as the line in Sin City went, skinny little Nancy Callahan Sherry Birkin. She grew up. She filled out. Visually at first, it was still a little difficult getting around the fact that she was still the kid from RE2, but after the first chapter where she’s gunning people down, flipping over chasms and fighting with you, she really comes into her own. Not only does she turn out to be pretty cool, it turns out that she’s got some super powers in her own right, attributed to the trace remnants of the G-Virus in her system from RE2 that has turned her immune system into something capable of super-healing.
I’ll additionally admit that I’m a little surprised that Sherry made it this high on my list too. I attribute some of it to freshness in mind, being one of the characters in RE6, but honestly, a lot of it is going to be attributed towards the fact that Sherry has the best alternate outfit out of all the other RE women. I like Sheva’s red riding hood, and Helena’s alternative is pretty much straight stripper, but I think Sherry trumps them both. It’s so outrageous, so wrong to some degree, but at the same time humorously aware of all of this, and they still put it into the game. But Sherry Birkin, 26-year old, has an alternate outfit that essentially squeezes her into the same school uniform she was wearing in RE2, when she was just 12. And it fits about as (in)appropriately as a pre-teen outfit would fit on a grown woman. It’s so dirty, but it’s so amusing, and I love it.
2. Jill Valentine (RE1, RE3, RE: Umbrella Chronicles, RE: Revelations, RE5)
Jill is easily the most tenured female in the RE series, as she has shown up a grand total of five times in the canon storyline. Umbrella Chronicles counts as well in this instance, because the very last campaign in the Wii rail-shooter was actually a completely original storyline that does tie into the RE timeline. Chris Redfield is the only other RE character to have as many game appearances as Jill does in total.
In terms of game releases, it really does start with Jill, despite the fact that the events of RE0 take place before earlier released RE1. Jill and S.T.A.R.S. Alpha Team are the ones dispatched to the Spencer Mansion to investigate the disappearance of the Bravo Team, and the rest is really history. Jill, along with Chris, Barry and Rebecca unearth the treachery of Wesker, and they kill a bunch of zombies. Jill reappears in RE3, which actually takes place before RE2, and is trapped in Raccoon City before she can get out, and has to fight her way to safety before the city is obliterated off of the map. The B.S.A.A. is then founded, and Jill, along with Chris have some adventures that encapsulate their original events in Umbrella Chronicles, as well as Revelations, before Jill is presumed dead, killed in battle against Wesker, but is actually still alive, and reappears in RE5.
Up until RE6, Jill Valentine was my favorite gal from the series. Most of it had to do with the fact that she’s the one that was there when my initial infatuation with the RE series began. There was no RE without Jill Valentine, and that nostalgia has essentially made her untouchable in my eyes. And the thing is, it’s hard to really pinpoint what exactly I really liked about Jill so much. She wasn’t like bombshell sexy, but always a good-looking character in general. I liked that her character was intelligent, with it showing in certain talents, like being the master of picking locks, her ability to play complex piano ballads, and that she could mix chemicals on her own and without Rebecca. Later games revealed that she was a competent fighter, and then RE5 essentially put her on steroids where she became a legit killing machine.
But personality wise, Jill was kind of lackluster. Aside from her talents, her general dialogue was kind of lacking, and she didn’t have nearly the complex relationships with any other characters that brought out any facets of her personality. There’s always been speculation that there’s something with her and Chris, and then RE3 planted seeds of curiosity between Jill with Carlos Oliveira. But aside from vague and ambiguous statements made in duress between her and Chris in events in RE5, Jill doesn’t really compare to my new favorite squeeze from the RE series.
1. Ada Wong (RE2, RE: Umbrella Chronicles, RE4, RE6)
While I was playing through Ada’s campaign in RE6, it occurred to me that she was now pretty easily my favorite girl from the series. I’ll go into more detail about why it is, but it all really culminates with the fact that everything she does is just so fucking cool.
Ada was actually mentioned in RE1, but not actually seen at all. She was formally introduced in RE2 where she claimed to be a woman who was looking for her boyfriend that just so happened to be tough as nails, and deadly with a gun, and surprise, she’s a spy trying to get a hold of a G-Virus sample. The Umbrella Chronicles goes into detail of how Ada escapes from Raccoon City, and where she first gets a hold of the grappling hookshot that essentially becomes one of her signature icons, but it isn’t really until RE4 does Ada’s star really take off.
If I bothered writing out a list like this between RE4 and prior to this one, then Ada Wong was probably at #2, with probably nothing but nostalgia what was keeping Jill Valentine at the #1 spot. But RE4 is where Ada really shines, as she’s reintroduced as the woman in THE red dress, who is always discreetly behind the scenes while Leon is trying to save Ashley Graham. She’s hot, sexy, always saying clever things and putting everyone in their place be it verbally or physically. Playing through her two unique campaigns in RE4 is just about better than playing through the normal Leon campaign in general, and it’s at the completion of Operation Ada do you really find out that nobody is really in control of Ada Wong, and what she does for her own motives is a mystery to pretty much everyone.
But it’s RE6 where I lost my shit over Ada, and declare her the best. Everything she does is just so fucking cool. She grappling hooks all over the place like Batman, and she’s a marksman with pretty much every weapon. The crossbow becomes her calling card in this game, and it’s so fitting for what’s a deadly secret agent spy type like Ada Wong. She fights in style, and in parts of the game when you have to actually escape from bigass monsters, she even escapes in style.
The bottom line is that Ada Wong is basically the complete package, in regards to the women of Resident Evil. She’s sexy, and has like a fox-like pretty face that I’ve grown to adore. The grappling hook makes her as cool as Batman, and she uses it in way more creative ways than even Batman could. As a fighter she utilizes a litany of finesse moves like flip kicks and even does hurricurranas and can victory roll zombies’ heads into explosion. She’s got a sexy, sultry voice that makes every word she says sound seductive, and she exudes the dangerous, don’t-fuck-with-me spy attitude, all while taking every single opportunity to cock-tease and taunt Leon from afar. It’s like Leon could have any chick in the RE timeline he wants at any given time, but the one he really wants is the one who he can’t catch, let alone have.
I know that people were infatuated over the red dress from RE4, but to be perfectly honest, I actually prefer Ada’s outfit in RE6 more. Don’t get me wrong, I thought the red dress was sexy and certainly memorable, but it really was a little ridiculous in context. The continuation of the red theme, but with the painted-on leather pants and the slightly modified hair style, I thought Ada looked way hotter in RE6.
So she’s hot, she’s sexy, she can fight, she can flirt, and simply put, everything Ada Wong does is fucking cool. She’s the best.
**
Unlisted, but worth mentioning:
Ingrid Hunnigan (RE4, RE6) – the brainy intelligence behind all of Leon, as well as Helena’s government support. She definitely fulfills that type if guys are into brainy chicks who rock the glasses and the power skirt suits. She’s unfortunately excluded from the list due to the fact that she’s simply not a playable character in any of the RE series. But she totally wants to do Leon as much as Helena and Ashley does. But she’s still worth mentioning because despite her unavailability in person, hints of her popularity are prevalent, no more than the fact that both Sheva and Claire have alternate outfits that precariously match Hunnigan’s look.
Jessica Sherawat (RE: Revelations) – why isn’t Chris’s partner from Revelations unlisted? Simple. I’ve never played RE: Revelations. I don’t want to spend money buying a Nintendo 3DS just for one single game, so if it means having an uneven list, then so be it. But apparently, RE:R is being ported to the Xbox, so it looks like I’ll have a chance to meet Jessica on my own yet. Perhaps, if I can remember it in the future, I can re-visit this list, and see where Jessica slots into a top-10?
